Rhetoric, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos

THE THREE "ARTISTIC PROOFS."

There are three artistic proofs that we can create: the appeals from
ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos
Persuasion from ethos establishes the speaker's or writer's good character.
As you saw in the opening of Plato's Phaedrus, the Greeks established a
sense of ethos by a family's reputation in the community. Our current culture
in many ways denies us the use of family ethos as sons and daughters must
move out of the community to find jobs or parents feel they must sell the
family home to join a retirement community apart from the community of their
lives' works. The appeal from a person's acknowledged life contributions
within a community has moved from the stability of the family hearth to
the mobility of the shiny car. Without the ethos of
the good name and handshake, current forms of cultural ethos often fall
to puffed-up resumes and other papers. The use of ethos in the form
of earned titles within the community-Coach Albert, Deacon Jones, Professor
Miller-are diminishing as "truthful" signifiers while commercial-name
signifiers or icons appear on clothing-Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Tommy
Hilfiger- disclosing a person's cultural ethos not in terms of a contributor
to the community, but in terms of identity-through purchase. Aristotle
warns us away from such decoys, telling us that the appeal from ethos comes
not from appearances, but from a person's use of language. In a culture
where outward appearances have virtually subsumed or taken over the appeal
from inner (moral and intellectual) character, the appeal from ethos becomes
both problematic and important. Given our culture's
privileges/rights of free speech and personal equality, however, we have
enormous possibilities for the appeal from ethos any writer well versed
in his or her subject and well spoken about it can gain credibility. This
kind of persuasion comes from what a person says and how a person says it,
not from any prejudice (pre-judging) of the author.

Aristotle tells us that three things "Inspire confidence in the
rhetor's [speaker's/writer's] own character-the three, namely, that induce
us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it: good
sense, good moral character, and goodwill. False statements and bad advice
come from the lack of any of these elements. Exhibiting these three aspects
of character in your discourse can play a large part in gaining credibility
for your ideas. As regards the academic essay, be sure to have your
writing appear written by a person of good sense by following
the format dictated by the Modern Language Association (M.L.A.) or
American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) or whatever your particular
academic community wants. Citing a bunch of sources
always adds to your credibility (sense of good sense) too. Stylistically
in your writing, you can show, if not your good moral character, at least
some character identification by sticking some little phrase before using
"r' or "we." Like, "As So-in-so's attorney, I suggest
. . . Or "As a dental hygienist, I advise...... Or "As an elderly
snowboarder for the past decade, I see no reason why...... Actually, using
"I" or "we" without such identifiers flips the attempt
at ethos into a sense of the generic nobody. Many writing teachers, therefore,
just say "don't use I." Aristotle implies, use "I" or
"we" to your advantage with an ethos-appeal sort of phrase out
there in front, or else forget it. Despite warnings against believing discourse
'just because it appears written by someone of good sense or because the
ideas "look good," you should try to create
discourse that "looks good." As a reminder from the Plato
chapter (now reinforced by the Aristotelian tip that people judge the credibility
of your ideas by your writing skills), you should
run your academic essay through the spell checker and bother numerous guinea-pig
readers for fixing up the organization and Standard English before letting
your essay loose on the world to do its work. If, as Aristotle says,
people are going to judge your spoken and/or written ideas by virtue of
the appearance of good sense, you'd best attend to that quality.

Pathos
Persuasion from pathos involves engaging the readers' or listeners' emotions.
Appealing to pathos does not mean that you just emote or "go off' through
your writing. Not that simple. Appealing to pathos
in your readers (or listeners), you establish in them a state of reception
for your ideas. You can attempt to fill your readers with pity for somebody
or contempt for some wrong. You can create a sense of envy or of indignation.
Naturally, in order for you to establish at will any desired state of emotion
in your readers, you will have to know everything you can about psychology.
Maybe that's why Aristotle wrote so many books about the philosophy of human
nature. In the Rhetoric itself, Aristotle advises writers at length how to create anger toward some ideal circumstance
and how also to create a sense of calm in readers.
He also explains principles of friendship and enmity
as shared pleasure and pain. He discusses how
to create in readers a sense of fear and shame and
shamelessness and kindness and unkindness and pity and indignation and envy
and indignation and emulation. Then he starts all over and shows
how to create such feelings toward ideas in various types of human character'
of "people" of virtue and vice; those of youth, prime of life,
and old age; and those of good fortune and those of bad fortune." Aristotle
warns us, however: knowing (as a goodwilled writer) how to get your readers
to receive your ideas by making readers "pleased and friendly"
or "pained and hostile" is one thing; playing
on readers' emotions in ways that make them mindless of concepts and consequences
can corrupt the judgment of both individuals and the community.

Logos
Finally, a writer appeals to readers through the appeal to the readers'
sense of logos. This is commonly called the logical appeal, and you
can use two different types of logic. You can use inductive
logic by giving your readers a bunch of similar examples and then
drawing from them a general proposition. This logic is pretty simple given
this, that, and the other thing-poof, there you go, a conclusion. Or, you
can use the deductive enthymeme by giving your
readers a few general propositions and then drawing from them a specific
truth. Like, "because such-'n-such is true and such-'n-such is true
and such-'n-such is true and everybody agrees on this other thing, then-poof,
stands to reason, a new truth.

Since the time that a bunch of guys called "The Royal Society"
(Hume, Locke, Bacon, etc.) rejected deduction, our
culture has generally favored induction because it's often called the "scientific
method" and we like science. Historically, people have also
attributed feminine metaphors to deductive logic and then easily dismissed
it or dismissed the general propositions as "not documented" or
"old wives tales."

Neo-ethos
At this juncture, I would like to add another appeal to Aristotle's classic
three. Or perhaps, this added appeal is just another aspect of the classical
ethos. The classical appeal to ethos establishes credibility of an idea
by establishing the good moral character/goodwill of the writer. In
what I call "neo-ethos," a writer establishes the credibility
of an idea by giving some desired character or identity to the reader.
Our culture's advertisers and fund-raisers do quite well by creating images
that consumers can participate in" by buying certain products. This ploy works best with people who feel little vocational
or family identity. Adolescents who wonder who they should be identity-wise
are an easy target for discourse that promises a credible sense of self.
"Smoke this, eat this, wear this, and you'll be cool." Offering
an identity to the elderly who have lost their homes, friends, and familiar
belongings sadly works too well: "We know you are a good church-goer
and so will give $$ this year," Or, "as a good citizen, republican,
whatever, we know you will help us out." Without the sense of vocational,
home, community, ethnic, etc. identity we become increasingly more vulnerable
to discourse that promises us name-tag clothing, members-only entitlements,
and turf. "Be a real man-, smoke these, wear this, and smell like Ralph."
Naturally, your own ethos as a writer with " good sense, good moral
character, and goodwill" will disarm you from using this neo-ethos
appeal to your readers' identity. For your own self-defense, however, you
should be aware of how others may use discourse to target you.

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